Oskar Wrangö – Glass Type Sculpture

Oscar Wrango

via I love typography

”

(via The Magenta Links.)

RoboVault

RoboVault describes itself as a Maximum Security Robotic Storage facility.
Hurricane-resistant, fully insured, and protected by biometrics, RoboVault is proposed for “an extraordinary location at the crossroads of several major roadway arteries including Port Everglades and the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale International airport.”

[Image: A glimpse inside RoboVault].

“No one enters the storage part of the facility,” we read; this has the effect of “minimizing the risk of theft or damage.” Indeed, “This revolutionary concept in storage uses robotic parking garage technology, allowing you to operate your rented storage unit automatically, so you can store and retrieve your possessions when you want.”
Which raises the question: How much longer must we wait before robotic parking garage technology crosses over into other architectural typologies? Single-family homes (you move your bedroom to the ground floor every morning), libraries (where’s that book? oh, that’s right… whoosh), football stadiums (your seats greet you at the entry gate).
In fact, for me, this whole complex sounds more like something out of a design studio at SCI-Arc, combining transport infrastructure, personal consumption, import/export laws, national sovereignty, exurban geography, climate control (the building offers “atmospheric consistency,” we’re told), new business models, biometrics, and the mechano-Derridean future of the archive – together with the narrative possibilities of architectural representation.
“What’s your building’s story?” the concerned professor asks.
You could even invent a new – presumably quite boring – party game. Take a proposed building or business model from anywhere in the world and then work backward: Try to imagine the design studio in which that project would first have been proposed. Try to imagine what they read. Try to imagine the keywords.

[Image: The biometrics of RoboVault].

In any case:

Here’s how it works: If you rent a RoboVault Space, you simply place your prize possession on the elevator, use the retinal eye scan and keypad security features and your property is safely stored away in a matter of seconds. You use the same process to retrieve your possession. Since there are no floors or entries, you don’t have to worry about theft or vandalism. With RoboVault Spaces, you’re buying peace of mind!

It all seems to have been designed solely to be featured in an as-yet-unannounced Jerry Bruckheimer film.

[Image: RoboVault's "extraordinary location at the crossroads of several major roadway arteries including Port Everglades and the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale International airport"].

If you’ll excuse the long quotation, this reads like the opening scene of Bad Boys III or Mission Impossible IV – or even Blade: Miami Nights:

A vehicle arrives at the overhead door and notifies the office of their impending entry. The overhead door is raised and the vehicle drives into the building after which the overhead door is then closed. The client is the only person/vehicle in this secure area. The client removes the contents to be stored from the vehicle and accesses the interior door by use of a pin code and biometric scan. When this occurs, the office staff is notified and meets the individual to provide access into the safe deposit box room. Once inside the dual locking system can be accessed by the client and RoboVault staff. The client then has the option to enter into one of two small viewing rooms. Exiting of the safe deposit box room will occur much in the same manner. An important feature is that there is one entry and exit out of the safe deposit box room. Each member of RoboVault personnel is bonded and have gone through background checks to ensure complete reliability.

Et cetera.
I love the idea, though, that certain building types – certain works of architecture – can actually catalyze new business models, complete with ripple effects outward into the worlds of insurance, tax law, and even the private behaviors of everyday citizens.

[Image: RoboVault].

And then you’ll franchise this building type, and build one in London, and wild new filmic possibilities arise. Bank Job 2. National Treasure 3.
Architecture built only for the purpose of inspiring Hollywood sequels.

(Thanks to Adam S. for the link!)”

(via BLDGBLOG.)

container (mit WRT): ”

Container signalisieren Mobilität. Die wiederum gehört in Zeiten der so genannten Globalisierung sowieso in einem Ausmass zum Alltag, das selbst unter EnthusiastInnen mitunter einiges Unbehagen zeitigen kann.

Dass gerade KünstlerInnen gern als ProtagonistInnen mobiler Existenz gehandelt werden, lässt sich dem entsprechend ebenfalls kritisch diskutieren.

Aber es gibt natürlich durchaus auch die Möglichkeit, die positive Seite der Medaille zu betrachten.

Das scheint sich das in Frankreich beheimatete Projekt ‘conteners‘ vorgenommen zu haben – und schliesst denn auch gleich mit einem entsprechenden Selbstverständnis an.

So werden seit 2005 verschiedene Projekte verfolgt, die allerdings nicht nur mobile KünstlerInnen vernetzen und das Nomadische feiern, sondern auch Gelegenheit zu Reflexion und Diskurs bieten wollen.

Am heutigen Freitag (22.02.08) lädt conteners beispielsweise zu einem Symposium und Seminartag ein, bei dem es um ‘Nomadism, new media and new artistic mobility in Europe’ gehen soll (mehr dazu im Programm als pdf).

Leider ist den Ankündigungen nicht zu entnehmen, ob vielleicht sogar ein Livestream von Teilen der Veranstaltung über das projekteigene Radi0 conteners geplant ist.

Mit einer (halben) Webradio-Tipp-Markierung haben wir diesen Eintrag aber auch mehr aus einem anderen Grund versehen: 2006 gab es nämlich offenbar intensive Radio-Aktivitäten – und deren Früchte sind in Form von Podcasts nach wie vor über die Archiv-Datenbank zugänglich. Einfach mal umschauen, es sind schon einige Leckereien dabei (wie zum Beispiel die Soundwalks und -parks des collectif MU)…

Nachtrag: Erst verspätet festgestellt, dass wohl aufgrund eines Umbaus der contener-Seiten ausgerechnet die gepriesenenen Hörstücke derzeit an der ausgewiesenen Stelle gar nicht zugänglich sind.
Nun, dann und vielleicht überhaupt besser gleich an der Quelle fündig werden. Zu Soundpark hat es nämlich, wie neugierige LeserInnen sicher auch schon selbst festgestellt haben, eine eigene Dokumentation auf den Heimseiten des MU-Kollektivs.

[Bildchen: Haben wir einfach mal ein paar Container gestapelt, weil die eben doch auch nicht ständig unterwegs sein wollen. Das Mutterexemplar holten wir uns aus den Wikipedia Commons, denen Oxam Hartog netterweise sowie unter cc-by-sa eine ganze Herde gespendet hat.
Die Lizenz zum Nehmen, Teilen, Weitergeben übernehmen wir selbstredend...]

“

(Via HOME MADE LABOR : WEBLOG : MUSIK MEDIEN KUNST.)

The Art of Motion Control: “‘It is a simple task to control small electrical signals which are carried by the wires attached to the printer port of IBM-compatible computers. As with all computer information, these digital signals (‘bits’) are either ‘on’ or ‘off.’ Very basic motion control can be accomplished by simply using these signals to turn on/off more powerful devices (eg. the electric valves in ‘Pipedream’).’

In motion:
“

(Via Hi-ReS! Feed.)

Nicholas Negroponte’s 1984 TED Talk: 4 predictions for the future (3 of them correct): ”

Speaking at the first TED Conference in 1984, Nicholas Negroponte waxes prophetic on the converging fields of technology, entertainment and design. Years before anyone was using the word ‘convergence,’ Negroponte was thinking about TV screens as the ‘electronic books of the future’ and computers as the future of education. In excerpts from his 2-hour talk (this was before TED’s 18-minute time limit), he foreshadowed web interfaces, touchscreen kiosks, the multitouch interface of the iPhone, and his own One Laptop per Child project. Oh, and there’s also a fascinating project called Lip Service, which … well, let’s just say it’s still ahead of us.

Negroponte’s full 2-hour talk will be made available for download, but parts of it must be restored.

(Recorded at the first TED conference, February 1984 in Monterey, California. Duration: 25:23.)

Watch Nicholas Negroponte’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about Nicholas Negroponte on TED.com.

Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:

“

(Via TED.)

Analog color selection, tangible interface and live performance: “
Today Amandine took this picture – it helped me to assemble some thoughts I had, dispersed, lately.“

(Via assembling.)

Analog color selection, tangible interface and live performance: “
Today Amandine took this picture – it helped me to assemble some thoughts I had, dispersed, lately.“

(Via assembling.)

Adventures in Stacking

New Scientist published an awesome little article this week about nothing more complex than stacking blocks of wood (subscriber-only)… But, oh, how complex that task can be.
It’s the combinatorial architecture of the well-balanced stack.

[Image: The diagrammatic mathematics of a structural experiment by Mike Paterson and Uri Zwick, as reported in New Scientist].

Computer scientists Mike Paterson and Uri Zwick have calculated new shapes and arrangements for the so-called “overhang problem,” by which one attempts to stack blocks outward from the edge of a table so that the blocks “overhang” as far as possible (before the stack collapses or you and your friends go out for more beer).
Strategically speaking, it turns out to be a matter of well-placed gaps, pressures, and weights.

[Image: Two abstract stacks by Mike Paterson and Uri Zwick].

In two papers, available as PDFs (here and here), Paterson and Zwick write about balancing “harmonic stacks,” then stabilizing them, through “minute displacements” of space and weight within the stack structure.

A stack is said to be balanced if there exists a collection of forces acting between the blocks along their contact intervals, such that under this collection of forces, and the gravitational forces acting on them, all blocks are in equilibrium.

We read about loaded stacks and point weights, and “combinatorially distinct arrangements.”

[Image: May the force stack with you; diagram by Mike Paterson and Uri Zwick].

The authors advise that

one should, at least in principle, consider all possible combinatorial stack structures and for each of them find an optimal placement of the blocks. The combinatorial structure of a stack specifies the contacts between the blocks of the stack, i.e., which blocks rest on which, and in what order (from left to right), and which rest on the table.

They talk about parabolic stacks and spinal stacks (“A stack is spinal if its support set has just a single block at each level”), and about the spatial structure of brick walls, describing “well-behaved collections of forces that stabilize symmetric and asymmetric brick-wall stacks.”

[Image: More stack madness by Mike Paterson and Uri Zwick].

But what are the architectural implications of all this? Are there any?
Or, in this age of advanced materials, are basic formal considerations such as these reduced to useless tinkering? Why worry about well-balanced stacks, in other words, when you can just put some cantilevered I-beams up there and be done with it, making experiments like these instantaneously obsolete?
Superficially, these diagrams actually remind me of the demolition of London’s P&O Building this summer, in which the building was taken apart from the ground up, as if disappearing into the sky – thus exhibiting a rather unique variety of the overhang problem.

[Image: London's P&O Building gets demolished in reverse; via the Daily Mail. To see what brain death feels like, meanwhile, don't miss the ensuing comment thread over at Gizmodo].

So are there tens of thousands of overhang problems on display right now in the jungly tangles of rebar and steel that remain camouflaged behind the facades of architectural structures? Deep in the guts of engineered buildings the world over, are there interesting mathematical lessons to learn – provided we change how we look at walls and windows?
Is this the architectural equivalent of Rimbaud’s “systematic derangement of the senses” – to see mathematics and topology where others see mere elevators and unused attic floors?
Inside our buildings, might there yet be something more to find?

[Image: View larger! Speculative demolition in Halle-Neustadt, via Nickzilla].

We could actually attempt to answer that question.
Given billions of dollars, zero insurance liability, and a whole fleet of Komatsu wrecking machines, could you re-examine the overhang problem from an architectural standpoint, seeing how many floors and offices you can remove before a building tips over?
You’d make little Gordon Matta-Clark-esque incisions throughout the city – taking out whole floors and elevator shafts – cutting away at every building, one executive office suite at a time, till each building begins to tilt, warp, or list… at which point you’d stop, take a photograph, calculate something, and then submit the image to a mathematics journal, thus winning the next Fields Medal for Applied Mathematics.
All of Manhattan is a demolitionist research lab for extremely well-funded and aggressive mathematicians.
Could you then exhibit these removed pieces elsewhere – showing, say, the entire, fully intact eastern elevator shaft from the Empire State Building at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, forming some weird and abstract concrete pillar in the sky, whistling quietly in the desert wind, home to seagulls?
Modernist Totem Poles, you’d call it – and you could then steal the elevator shafts from the Transamerica Pyramid, the Sears Tower, the Chrysler Building, and Taipei 101.
In any case, does the stacking problem contain an architectural lesson? Read the original two papers featured in New Scientist to find out.

(Via BLDGBLOG.)

>Flow 5.0

Flow 5.0: a mashup of Art & Technology. Take hundreds of fan, stick them together, give them a sound and movement sensor and make people interact.

(Via NOTCOT.ORG.)

DIY hand-based 3D input

Filed under: Peripherals

If you’ve ever felt the burning desire to give your index finger a little more prominence in your day-to-day computing exercises, here’s your chance. A DIY’er has combined an IR-based, homemade tracking system with a piece of software that he’s coded which can translate the IR data into 3D navigation. So far, the system can track the movement of two hands using six individual points (we assume one per axis, per hand). Details are scarce on the project right now, but the prospect of manipulating onscreen images or spaces in three dimensions with a cheap and simple solution is definitely enticing. Check the video after the break to see a finger in action.

Continue reading DIY hand-based 3D input

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

(Via Engadget.)